Resolving a Debate Meta-Structure (Beginner) with Lewis

So I'm going to give maybe two more minutes here before I start, but if I, if you guys have any questions feel free to shoot, and we can start chatting now, and then we can build from there.

Right. We're talking about reading copy now. mean, there's a version of this for LRT, I guess, but I think it can work.

I don't have a strong feeling as to whether it's right or I can lay out the rational considerations here and then I'd say, by the way, also, there's no way to evaluate things until you try them.

This should all be empirical. You should try things and then I don't mean in like the high sample size study double blind sense.

But it should be empirical in the sense that try it and see how it feels. Here's basically the trade off, okay, and then you can make an evaluation from go from here.

That's what I would say. Yeah, so the risk of the strategy you just suggested is that you will essentially run out of time for the easiest time here, right?

Like the worst case scenario would be you invest all this time up front on the hard part, and then you use too much time, and then you clamp for time at the end of the easiest questions.

Why is that the worst case scenario? Well, the harder questions are your less likely to get right, even if you're a 170 plus score, you're still less likely to get those answers right than the easy ones, which means if you had to guess on any question, you wanted it to be that one, right?

Now, if you're always gonna finish the section anyway, then I think this risk is substantially mitigated. And then I mean, I can absolutely see the argument.

say, if I think I'm fresher and more focused, the beginning then let me take advantage of that fact and um basically i don't even know the right way to put this but essentially uh whatever i don't know how to take to my best thinking you know early on or something like that right is that is that a reasonable way of putting the point yeah i can see that argument i guess i don't i don't i don't have more to say than that really but i can definitely see the argument um just see how it feels if you feel like oh this sounded good in theory but as i'm doing it now i'm like realizing that actually i'm uh whatever finding myself struggling to finish sections more than i realized i would or something along those lines then okay you weren't your lesson and you don't want to do that now right but otherwise yeah it could be it could let's just get started here

We're doing more meta structures. I had all these meta structure lessons. I'm, you know, it's good. We've got to talk about reading comp.

It's important. One of the harder subjects for most people, um, one of all the tutoring techniques out there in the world.

Metastructures as a concept is one that I'm actually way more positive on than I thought I would be. It actually works really well for my own thinking the way I think about the test, too.

I don't think it's an anyway misleading. I don't think it's in any way a sort of, I don't even think it's, I don't even think it's missing the point.

Most tutoring techniques are kind of in a deeper way missing the point, but make things sound little easier for people or something like that.

This, this actually, meta structures actually get at what's really going on. So I like it as a technique for that reason.

And despite the fact that it's sort of Frax is really going on at the deeper level. It is a way clearer way of communicating certain ideas to students that I used to struggle like a lot with getting across.

So I really am, I really am a believer in that sense in meta structures here. Okay. So I'm ironically less a believer in memorizing a bunch of named meta structures.

I don't think that matters very much. I think understanding the concept of a meta structure is what's important. And then you can kind of cobble them together as you see fit, as you go.

That's more the way I see things at this point in time. But let's take a look. So nevertheless, we're going to talk about, now this is a meta structure in particular, resolving a debate.

This is my go to example. I think it's the clearest, one of the clearest examples of a meta structure.

And really there are like five or six or seven different possible structures within this one meta structure. So it's really good too in that it's highly general.

It just gives you a way to quickly feel like okay I understand the basic structure of what I'm reading right now like what's going on oh here Let me give it to you.

Okay, so You're dealing with this meta structure well two two things have to be true Okay, one is and the second one is trivial.

It's almost always true. The main one is So here. I'll let's make this look nice resolving a debate. Whoa Can you guys see see this text box?

How I seem to make this text box not be stupid. Okay, can you guys see this? Okay, so You

So, as is often the case, these meta structures mean exactly. What sound like, they mean, and that's nice, so there's some kind of intuitive about them, okay?

So, the first thing is, I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. Can someone tell me what they think I mean by the author introduces a debate in the literature on some subjects?

What does that mean?

Right. guess it doesn't literally have to be historical. But yeah, by in the literature, I mean, like in the academic literature, whatever, right.

Well, it means there's an there's there's sort of often times like you say it is historical. Like, oh, yeah.

Like if I if we're talking about moral philosophy and I say, oh, yeah, the old debate between utility, know, consequentialism and deontology or something like that.

I mean, that's not often it refers like, like you were suggesting I was just now just sort of broader schools of thought or something like that that differ on some question.

So. Let's, let's draw out, let's stay here for a second and draw out some implications of this. So one implication of the fact that there's this ongoing debate is both sides must have some merit, right?

There wouldn't, you wouldn't describe a situation as being an ongoing debate if one side was just Are there any exceptions to this?

Only good. Just because a great example would chat for a science version of this. Oh, it might be like an ongoing debate on the question of what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

a great topic. So let me ask you a question, Jeff. Why do you think that is the kind of topic you expect to see in a debate meta structure in a science passage on?

Or let me put a point another way. What kind of topics would you expect not to see a debate meta structure in science about

Okay, so they probably won't do that because we want... you're right, that's not a good... it's bad for a number of reasons.

One, it's completely stilted. side is just dominates the other side, so it's not interesting. The other is, if you had to defend the side that's really losing so hard, you could do it, but it would be by completely shifting the grounds so that their sides are just talking past each other, right?

You could say, well, I just... I stipulate that, you know, we shouldn't form beliefs by evidence, we should form beliefs through faith or something.

you're like, you know, you can completely reject the basic methodology of science, it's not really a... that's two sides talking past each other, not really a destructive debate going on.

You can stipulate the existence of God, for example. It's as embarrassing as that sounds, that is one of the only popular attacks that people take anymore in circles that debate this topic.

Most pro-religious debate is just literally... subscribe to what they call presuppositionalism, which literally means I presuppose the existence of God and start from there.

And technically, you can't call that irrational because you're left to stipulate anything you want as a matter of logic.

True. But you can't even fathom an application of that in any other context. Okay, we're debating whether not this law should be passed.

I start by stipulating that the law should be passed. Now I win. What? That's all that's going on. So yeah, it's not going to be that.

But let's just say we're within the realm of science, versus scientists. Where's the subject where you wouldn't expect to see an ongoing debate?

By the way, it might be reasonable to form and hold religious beliefs based on presuppositionalism. It's just worthless as a matter of debate.

Okay, it means you're unwilling to debate. It means you're unable and unwilling to justify your beliefs other than by the brute fact that you hold them.

Now that might turn out to be a enough. Maybe the mistake isn't asking for justification. That's possible and a really interesting philosophical discussion, but it's useless from the point of view of debate.

That's the point I'm trying to make, right? That's why you don't see it, but you wouldn't want to see a debate between yourself, okay?

It's an unproductive debate. Whether or not they're right or wrong to hold the belief they hold is a wholly different question and a very hard one to answer.

I mean, I tend to believe in sort of in debate as a genuine form that enables finding of truth.

I also believe in certain broad sort of enlightenment principles about how best to form beliefs based on evidence and so on.

So I tend not to gravitate towards those worldviews, but I also don't make the mistake of thinking that any of those sort of ideas about how to form beliefs are themselves a pure matter of logic.

There are something else. They are substantive beliefs about how to approach the world and forming beliefs. But anyway, sorry, I didn't need to go

on it. Let me go back to the original way. Can someone give me example of a subject that you wouldn't expect to hear a debate about in science?

Or outside of science, right? Okay, yeah, so one thing is they're not going to give you something that's crazy in the weeds, right?

They're not going to do that because it's just like not, they might at times cue you in a little onto some technical stuff, but they obviously aren't expecting you to know about, but they're expecting you to be able to field a discussion of.

But if the debate is purely technical, there's nothing to hook on to unless you're in the field, so they're not going to do that.

But I have something more fundamental in mind here. But you're right, you're right to say everything you're saying is good so far.

agree with everything you're saying completely. Well, here's what I have in mind, I won't try to pull teeth here for some reason.

Yeah, it was a so that's all fair, but here's what I meant, in an area where there's just clearly a right answer that we found, right?

So, in areas where there's too much evidence, you're not going to hear ongoing debates about whether evolution is true, because it's just true.

Now, you might get a science master's talking about debates in very, very specific and narrow edge cases about evolution or interpretations of evolutionary theory, okay, right?

Those can be subjects for debate, but not well- Another evolution is true. Similarly, you're not going to have debates about, in political philosophy, you're not going to have debates about whether or not murder is wrong, or whether not it should be made legal.

It's not, there's no, there aren't, it isn't a hard enough question. There aren't multiple sides with merit. If there's an ongoing debate, there's a clear implication that two things are true.

If we're in the world of science, that the data alone has not been able to settle the issue, either because it's too hard to find, or because the question is too, is too sort of conceptually challenging to admit of any easy solution from experiment.

Okay, that's where interpretations of theories can come in, right? your dinosaur example is great, what makes it a good topic for ongoing debate?

If there's not enough data, it happened too long ago, and there's a very severe paucity of information available on the topic.

That's why we can't resolve the debate. poor... The small amount of data we have is compatible with multiple theories, right?

You see the point? Okay. Next question. You've got this debate on whatever the topic. How broadly might an author resolve the debate?

What are the different ways you could go about doing that? I've gone over this before. of you may remember, I don't mind if you just repeat things we've talked about.

It's totally fine. It's a small crew too. So I can stop asking all these questions and I can just lecture, I guess.

I just hate that. boring for me. But I guess I can do my job. You guys think I should just do my job?

Or should I make your problem? Let's get a vote in the chat. One, one, if you want me to just go ask through this faster and get to some passagens to if you want me to keep.

you trying to drag a conversation of, you know, this might be a one. What do you guys think? Well, seeing no and getting that, seeing no, even voting, I think I should just push ahead.

Okay, so let's just go through. So the most obvious way to resolve a debate is to take aside. Okay.

Well, that's one way to resolve a debate, just take aside. Now, I say resolve a debate, I don't mean like in the universe, like I don't mean the author was so successful that the debate has henceforth stopped.

And now everyone can agree. Okay, you have no idea what the effect of the author's writing is on the world.

I just mean it to that it shouldn't be called resolving issue called trying to resolve a debate, right? Okay, oh, I actually got it right.

goes on to attempt to resolve the debate. Well, one way to try to solve a debate is to take aside.

Okay, we'll talk more about the kinds of reasons that the author might give to justify taking a side, okay?

That can be an interesting conversation itself, but we'll bracket that for now. What's another broad way you might do this?

Well, you could try to take both sides. What's wrong with that though? What's wrong with this as a thesis?

What's Something's wrong. This is not quite right. There's a version of this that's going to work, but it's not this.

What's wrong with this? Okay, sleepy day. there are a couple things wrong. we already knew both sides had merit.

That's why there's an ongoing debate. This is not a thesis. You've said nothing. Okay. Okay. Two, even though what the author is saying here is obvious, it's also obviously, in some sense, wrong.

I mean, both of them merit, but in principle, both sides can't be true. That's why they're debating. Imagine if the ongoing debate was between pro-choice and pro-life.

And someone said, I think there's merits to both arguments. Yeah, great. So, so should abortion be legal or not?

Both sides. Both. What do you mean both? You can't have both. That's why we're debating. You have to pick one, okay?

So this is a stupid thing to say, unless you can show that actually both sides can be reconciled. In other words, this is like an apparent paradox.

This is like a paradox question from logical reasoning. You guys with me? So you can't just say both sides of merit because the assumption going in is that the two sides are incompatible.

That's why they're fighting and that's why they have been fighting. Now sometimes the author can come in and say, well actually, contrary to what they've assumed, both sides are compatible with each other, some assumed.

This is interesting, one, it's unexpected, two, with some substantive argument of justification. You can actually, oh, okay, whoa, whoa, hold on.

We always knew there was a kind of merit to both sides, but we thought that at least one of the sides merits had to be illusory because they couldn't both be true.

But if it turns out they could both be true, well, that's potentially way of resolving the big. Okay, we don't need to take a side it.

Okay, so that's one way to do it. Another way to do it. I'm just going through the obvious. Take one side, try to take both sides, how about taking neither side.

Well, okay, but this doesn't yet sound like a thesis either, right? Can someone fix this for me? What would you have to do to make this a thesis?

I mean, right now it sounds like I just didn't buy the writing paper at all. Oh, there's a debate and I don't care.

Who cares? Okay, sure that neither side is possible. So reject both sides. Now, that sounds like you're doing some actual argumentative work, right?

That is now looking possible. If you could in some sense refute both sides of the debate, that could be interesting or valuable.

But it will also be a little bit confusing. What's confusing about this? Thank you, Joseph. You're my saving grace right now.

Okay. I'm just a lonely. I need company. No, it can be like it's also. The face is off if we were like in a room together and I could see all of you guys like a like you know Like when I was teaching undergrad in my years.

I'm like, okay I understand even if you're all sleepy and a little distracted. I don't need to participate. I know you're there But now it's like these black feet just like the zoom thing you know Yeah, great counter exactly.

We need an alternative here. I'm gonna No, no worries about accidentally drawing on this. I'm just gonna risk it.

Okay, so exactly right I Now technically they don't have to but you would want that. Ideally, they should offer an alternative i.e.

Side C, right? if they do they end up endorsing that alternative Okay That was exact that's perfect. Thank you.

I appreciate that. That was a great answer Okay, so then you can feel why again if we were like pro should abortion be legal or not and then you're like neither I can't tell what you just have this really really intriguing, but if you don't follow it up with anything i'm going to think it was pretty stupid right like I didn't realize neither was on the table you can't care to elaborate right now.

Maybe you could say like neither I Think it should be left up to the states. Okay. Well, we that's actually you It was a little misleading.

It's still gonna be made legal or illegal It'll just change depending on the state, but if you interpreted the original question is asking about You know Um what the federal law should be that this was a reasonable thing to say Now you might even say something crazy.

No neither the law shouldn't The law the law shouldn't touch the subject instead We should leave it up to Private arbitration to decide in any case

I mean, I don't know, whatever. This is stupid, moving on from my own bad example. OK, you know, I'm going to be honest with you.

I don't see any other way, is there any other way to resolve a debate besides these three things? I can't think of anything right now.

You're either take a side, you show they can be reconciled, or you end up rejecting them both, and probably proposing a third way.

So anything else you could do? I mean, these are the main things. You could sort of imagine, this is going maybe a variant on rejecting both sides, reframe the debate.

Maybe, right? Does that make sense? Maybe we could do that. Different ways this might go. The question was wrongly posed initially.

And if we correct it, then the debate dissolves. So you could call it dissolving the debate or reframing the debate, OK?

This isn't exactly the same thing as rejecting both sides. This could blend into either amounting to rejecting both sides or even accepting both sides.

It's a little bit different. This is the most subtle. This is the most analytically sharp way that things could go.

Does this make sense? This is the thing that I imagine would be most confusing thus far. Do you guys know what I mean by this refraining the debate?

This could, by the way, in principle reframing could lead anywhere. could even lead to taking a sign. Once the question is fixed, side A, clearly wins.

This is a possible angle also, right? Does this make any sense? OK, no, I like this suggested. So this is a little bit like reframing, except it's this is like taking reframing into the rejection of both sides.

It's not even about a rejection, but there's time just. This is what this is true. You dissolve in what you're saying, right?

Now, I see what you mean. OK, all right, I misunderstood initially. Now I understand what you're proposing. Yeah, they might actually do what you're saying, but it's pretty bad.

Like if someone showed me a paper like that, I would tell them there are two possibilities. Whether you're wrong, in which case this is a bad paper, or you're right, in which case this is a bad paper because why do you care?

That's the issue with a paper like that. But sometimes it gets written. And if the debate is allowed to debate in the literature, then people might find it worthwhile to write that anyway, right?

So, yeah, it's possible. But it's a good example of what one way you might dissolve debate, just by saying it doesn't matter.

You could dissolve it by saying it doesn't matter by saying the question was actually incoherent, by saying the question was just misstated, and if you stayed it properly, then everything makes sense.

Right. OK, when we go back to taking a side, there are different ways you might take a side. the most boring and the least likely is because of new evidence.

What do I mean by this? Well, I was saying before, like with the dinosaur thing, the only reason the debate is even going on still is that we don't have enough evidence.

Well, sometimes you finally get enough evidence and now we know who's right and who's wrong. That can happen. It's kind of boring because, like, in theory, everyone should agree now.

Like, we just didn't have enough evidence and now and now we know. Not the most interesting but it happens.

It's possible. Usually, though, the authors are actually making substantive arguments. You don't understand what mean? What's the distinction between new evidence and making a definite argument?

Well, okay, that's true. New evidence doesn't necessarily resolve anything. You know, I was imagining new evidence that does just settle the thing.

Look here, let's say there's a debate about whether God exists. Okay, and we're at a standstill because the side that's in favor of the existence of God is just pointing to is it admits that they have no actual heart of its point to a God's existence and it's said pointing to either some faith-based argument or maybe some form of an attempt at a logical proof of God, but one that is being contested.

Okay, and then suppose in the middle of this debate, the clouds parted and God came down and performed series of miracles and supplied all the missing evidence.

I would resolve the debate, but it's kind of boring. mean, it would resolve the debate to the satisfaction of both parts, right?

I mean, even the anti-God side agreed, if you have evidence of this kind, I guess I would accept it.

just don't think it's true because that you don't have this evidence, right? Yeah, so Katherine, so I think what you just proposed is a version of that is one of the things I have here.

This is what I need by reconciling both sides. Again, the hard work is showing how that's possible. Presumably they were fighting because they thought that only one person could get what they wanted.

You would need a creative solution that shows that that both sides are compatible with each other. If you can do that, then you can give them both what they want and theory.

But for most debates, you can't do that. But when you can, it's a it's a It's an excellent resolution.

And it is a fairly common way of resolving the administration, right? That definitely happens. But it's not enough to just say, here's the debate.

I think both sides have merit, and I like them both. You said nothing if you say that. That's nothing.

That's less than nothing. That's much less than nothing. makes you seem like a, not you. author would seem like a complete idiot.

Like, yeah, you're fighting. They're fighting. Don't you understand? Like, you see what I mean? Yeah, exactly. Which is, I think, why you were hesitant about the suggestion.

But it was actually right. is think it was good. So yeah, the hard work is to show that they're compatible.

It's like resolving a paradox for a logical reasoning. If you can do that, though, then you're good, then you're great.

that can be a really good passage, is that? OK, so let's move on to an example. I haven't actually decided yet what passage I want to read.

I think I know what the answer to to be I just like don't want to do it because I've read it before so many times and students that it's so boring to me but that's okay I'm stealing myself for boredom hold on I'm close I can do this okay all right we're good here we go you guys excited to read a boring passage but I'd always because the l set gives only the most boring reading passages that I've ever seen in my entire life okay here we go it's gonna take me second to pull it up does anyone have any questions at this point about literally anything it doesn't even have to be on this topic but ideally if it is go for it um well I it's gonna take me 60 seconds pull this up I hate and wait it's okay if you don't I was just buying time for me to open the right passage okay

I Can do this You guys seen do you know this passage it's about deterring crime You know what I'm about the best way to deter a crime This is like one of the more classic we will pass so it is genuinely a good passage to go over I've just done it so many times All right, never mind.

I've had a faster than I thought I would say you guys are all spared My ramblings Let's figure it out Oh Okay, you see this whoops one thing whoops Check this test bigger.

How do we feel I'm gonna zoom in on the head? Okay, actually you honestly you guys don't need to be the one with me.

That's kind of annoying. This is from October of 2011. I Can't remember the number let me check This is PT-64

64 October of 2011. It's section four, which is the reading comp section. And it's the first passage. Okay. So you guys can pull this up on your own.

It might be a little easier to like just control it yourself and scroll. Otherwise, we're just going to read it together on my screen and to ourselves and at the end, we'll chat.

Okay. I'm to chat. I'm chat. You Just throw a chat whenever you're done reading, so I. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And actually, the number one mistake students make when I show them this passage is when I ask what the main point is, they say like that both sides are right, or that both sides have good points.

Why is that not the thesis? And what is the thesis? Yeah, that's good. We said that exactly. The point isn't that both sides.

Have nice things about them or something. It's that they can be combined. In other words, that they are reconcilable.

That's the main point. That it works to combine them. Yes, exactly. And yes, and to be more precise, which doesn't say that the utility maximization for

A principle from economics, when applied to this legal debate, can reconcile the positions and their by-result debate, show that they actually both amount to accomplishing the same thing.

Okay. All right. Now, I'm going ask the harder question, just to, whoa, the heck, how much is completely on?

I'm sorry. Can you guys, is it back? Oh, I think I just asked them, are we, like, like, down on my trackpad and I'm like, send me, send me, okay, we're good.

Um, and someone explains to me what's going on here. Someone walked me through this. Someone who understands what they mean by the utility rightsization principle and how it's working.

So let's just explain the passage to me, because actually let's break it down. What is the utility maximization principle?

Here, I'm going to put three questions in chat. Anyone who wants to answer any of these should go ahead.

Oh, I don't think that's right, Mason. That doesn't sound right to me.

Yeah, so okay, sorry, what was this second paragraph here? Yeah. Give it right here.

Yeah, choice of actions, right? Yeah, exactly. Okay. So in other words, do you like walk me through in any case, can you apply this to the crime thing?

So what are they saying? Like, how does this process work, according to that?

Okay, so how do I decide whether it does? So I'm trying to, okay, we make any sort of, right?

I do, I was trying to give you free rain to make one. I want you to make it. Give me a little scenario.

You can set all the facts you want. You have total control. Walk me through how the person is supposed to be.

Reasoning, according to this theory. I'm not sure I agree with anything that's in chat right now. I'm just going to warn you.

I'm not sure. don't know what it means. I don't know what it means to say, make economic benefit nullified from profits.

I don't know that means. I thought that profits are the same thing as economic benefit.

That's what the racial identity is all about. That's true, but that's not what it's, that's what, that's not what this principle means.

This principle is relevant to that consideration, but the mere fact that you might get caught or might not get caught isn't itself the utility maximization principle.

Okay, hold on, I need someone who can actually summarize this principle as clearly as possible. This is important. This is definitely important.

Okay, we have an answer here. So the problem with what you're saying is it's almost circular, okay? If someone is a prisoner in B and we just say, stipulate that A would be a better choice and benefit the person more, of course they're going to do it.

That's what it means to better benefits the more. That's not a theory of anything. We don't need economics for that.

I mean, what's the alternative that a person given two choices will pick the thing that doesn't benefit them? It's circular though.

The question is how does someone decide what benefits them and what doesn't, okay? As I just said, let's see, do you tell us what they're Well, okay, they're going to do it by regard to what they want, but the question

is, okay, so suppose I know what I want. I don't want to go to jail. I do want to have money.

I do want people to wipe me. I don't want people to think bad things about me. Okay. How does that translate into the decision of whether to take one action after another in my life?

We're still really far from anything useful.

Same benefit as plan A, but that's just my understanding of it. I'm not quite sure. Okay, so let's let's back it way up.

Okay, so This is a framework for calculating against certain assumptions now unless there was no chance of you getting caught Merely assuming you won't get caught would not be an application of this principle Um, you'd have to explain why you're making an assumption.

It doesn't sound right. So suppose that That Person a is considering committing Two t's committing one t, one t, two m's.

What is going on here? Mitt, two t's committing, two t's. Okay, what's wrong with one t? It's considering committing Prime x.

Here are all the row and set If they Get away with it Hold on, they will come away with profit of n, would profit n.

If they are caught, they will suffer penalty p. There is, let's say, 50% chance that they will be caught, and they know this, okay?

We're gonna have to do this calculation in parts here. So we can't, well, I don't want to get ahead of myself.

So the first question I want to ask is, what is the experience, I'm making these terms up, I'm getting the passage.

So here they say, Expected utility of an action is thus retained by determining the utilities of the possible outcomes, weighing them according to the likelihood for each and then adding up those weighted utilities.

Okay. what is the expected you? How would you? What is the expression that determines the expected utility of this outcome?

How do I? Beside whether this is worth doing just off of these facts. What is the expression? Actually, we're not even at the question of whether I should do it or not yet.

We're before that. I'm just asking what the expected utility is. How would you calculate? What's expected utility here? It's essentially just mass.

Yeah. So it's a wave of likelihood with the magnitude of benefit or harm. So how do I do that?

There's a famous formula in you're going to learn this in law school in toward law called the hand formula.

That's just an application of this principle. a much older principle. Well, they told you, we'll read it one more time.

The expected utility of an action is ascertained by determining the utilities of the possible outcomes of the action. I gave you that.

Wearing them according to the likelihood of each coming to pass and then adding up those weighted utilities. So can we do that?

Well, N is the profit if I get away with it, but how likely am I to get away with Fifty percent.

Fifty percent. Precise. So I need to divide this by two to reflect that fact and I need to add to this.

Well, it's going to end up being a subtraction, essentially, because p is likely to be a negative utility. But I'm going to add to this the utility of every other possibility.

There's only one other possibility on the table, which is that I get caught, in which case I will suffer penalty p.

But that also needs to be discounted by half, because there's only 50% chance of that happening. So this is the expected utility of robbing the bank.

Now, given that the odds of getting caught are the same as the odds of getting away with it, the only question to decide whether this is positive or negative is p worse than n.

That's it, because it's 50-50. But then you might, of course, for a person's actual utility curve, they might be risk-averse.

So then, maybe you wouldn't just want it to be just as good either way, because you don't have to gamble.

I don't know. Or maybe you're risk-loving, and you like the thrill, in which case you'd be willing to take even a bad gamble here.

But this is what expected utility does. takes the benefit or cost of any outcome to you that's possible. and discounts it by how likely you think it is to occur.

But we haven't yet decided whether not this person is going to do this. Suppose I give you numbers. Suppose there's no jail time.

Now suppose, here, we'll read this, this is still the expression. Now I'm going to tell you that n equals 1 million dollars and the p is just a fine.

And the fine is only a hundred thousand dollars. So what's the expected utility now? So it's negative, it's a fine.

What's the expected utility now? Uh, yeah, we need to subtract the penalty, right, but you're causing. I know I wrote it with a plus line, but here p is negative, right?

That's quite a mass to subtract. Yeah, yeah, I'm assuming you don't get to keep the money if they catch you, right?

So you lose the money you would have stolen and you have to pay this penalty. So it's 450. So here the expected utility is 450k.

So in our case here, this is 450k. So now let's ask you a question. It's a trick question. Is this person going to rob the bank or not?

According to this theory. I'll tell you the correct answer it's you have no idea you don't out whether this person is gonna rob the bank given what I've given you you

What else do you need to know? No, no, they know everything. He is I, I am he. I'm person A.

I'm trying to decide if I should rob this bank. This is where I'm at in my thought process, but I've only shown me this side of my thought process.

What is the other relevant question that determines whether I'm going to do it? That's factored into this. I know what happens if I get away with it.

know what happens if get caught up. If I get away with it, I walk away with a million dollars.

If I get caught, I'm down a hundred grand in fines. And I don't get to keep anything. But given that it's 50-50 as far as I can tell, getting away with it, that expected utility of attempting it is 450 grand.

It's a positive expected value. Why? Well, because the benefit outweighs the cost. cost of being caught, and the odds are even.

So why isn't it right to just conclude I'm going to do this then? You guys need a primer in your economics, in your micro.

Maybe just in, actually, you might not even need microeconomics. This might be stats, maybe just logic. I'm not sure.

This is more logic than anything. What's missing? This is a matter of logic, I think, not so much economics.

What's missing from this calculus, guys? What's missing is what else can I be doing instead of this? This isn't the only positive expected utility action I could take right now.

I could go rob a bank, or I could tutor for an hour, and I'll get paid for that. Right?

Or I could just go play Call of Duty on the couch, and I don't actually play Call of Duty, but whatever.

That has some expected utility that's positive. I don't risk anything doing that, and it's at least fun. I don't know how to calculate that type of money, but it has utility.

Or I could go take a nap. Or I could go in the list in the army. Right? Right? Or I could go run out in the middle of the street and light myself on fire.

That's probably a really bad one. sounds like a lot of negative. Or I could go run and get my computer charger from the other room before my computer dies.

going to go do that. mean, one second. Okay. So someone tell me what crucially the other consideration is that decides whether I do this or not.

It's in the passage if you can't think of it yourself. So. You So actually expecting utility theory just literally says what is the expected utility of the next best way that I could spend my time out of all the possibilities if it's higher than this I'm not going to do this I'm going to do that instead.

What if I'm what if I'm a senior partner at a major law firm making seven figures a year do you think I'm going to.

ever do this for an expected utility of $450,000, obviously not, what if I'm totally impoverished, I'm in debt, behind on my bills, I can't even afford food, and I have a family that depends on me, and I have no one to fall back to.

Then do you think I would probably rob this bank or not? No, it's not $550k, and we went over this earlier, $450k.

P is negative, it's a fine. This is the whole plan of the passage. So to go back to the first question I tried to ask, suppose I'm a person considering committing a crime.

What are the things I'm going to factor in into my decision. One, how good would it be if I got away with it?

Two, how bad will it be if I get caught? severe are the penalties? Three, how likely am I to be caught?

Four, how good is my life when I obey the law? That's the key point. That's why the two sides can be reconciled.

Well, it's obvious why increasing penalties affects my calculus, the worse the penalty, the worse the downside if I'm caught.

It's obvious why increasing policing affects my calculus, the more likely I am to be caught, the less likely I am to do it.

But it's also important if I improve basic social structures in society like education and job opportunities in healthcare. Because if you improve people's lives when they obey the law, then they're less likely to choose to keep crimes.

Because the expected utility of lawful activity will exceed the expected utility of crime. You see the point? This is the point of the passage.

All right, we didn't get enough time to actually answer any questions, but that's okay. You guys can do that on your own time.

It's actually a worthwhile homework exercise, okay? The important thing is to, well, I mean, look, I admit to you, okay, I don't always dig into the content this much, but this is just really good content, and it's a really good idea to be familiar with these principles.

These principles are very deep, they're very important, they're literally going to help you in your life, but more importantly, they come up on this test a lot, okay?

And they aren't treated by the test like matters of knowledge that you aren't expected to have. They're closer to matters of logical reasoning than anything, and so they are expecting you to be able to think in terms of expected utility and utility maximization and decision making under uncertainty.

These are just like very, very fundamental concepts. So I encourage everyone to get familiar with these concepts going into this test.

It will definitely help you. Okay, on that note, thanks everyone for coming. If anyone has any last questions, I'll field them very briefly, but I've got to run.

and like maybe the next minute. Okay, thanks everyone for coming and good luck with everything.